----- Forwarded message from Stefan Monnier <monnier+gnu/emacs(a)tequila.cs.yale.edu&gt; ----- X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.0 04/14/1999 From: "Stefan Monnier" <monnier+gnu/emacs(a)tequila.cs.yale.edu&gt; To: Jan Vroonhof <vroonhof(a)math.ethz.ch&gt; Subject: Re: non-greedy regexps Date: Fri, 03 Dec 1999 01:01:10 -0500 I tried to code up shy-groups and arrived at something that seems to work, but I had some doubts because of some suspicious comments in regex.c. Luckily those comments provide sample tricky regexps and sure enough I fail on them. Funnily enough, XEmacs fails on them as well: emacs/src-0% /softs/xemacs-21.1.2/bin/xemacs --batch --eval "(message \"%s\" (list (string-match \"^\\\\(?:\\\\(a*\\\\)*\\\\(b*\\\\)*\\\\)*\$\" \"aba\") (match-string 1 \"aba\")))" (nil nil) emacs/src-0% /softs/xemacs-21.1.2/bin/xemacs --batch --eval "(message \"%s\" (list (string-match \"^\\\\(\\\\(a*\\\\)*\\\\(b*\\\\)*\\\\)*\$\" \"aba\") (match-string 1 \"aba\")))" (0 a) emacs/src-0% Maybe this was fixed since 21.1.2, of course. I haven't looked at XEmacs code, but I assume it does something very similar to mine and the problem doesn't seem easy to solve. Maybe it can be solved without too much hacking, but it requires a much better understanding of the code than I have. Stefan ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Jan Vroonhof http://www.math.ethz.ch/~vroonhof/ Mathematik, vroonhof ＠ math.ethz.ch HG E16, ETH-Zentrum, Tel: +41-1-6325456/25154 Raemistrasse 101, CH-8092 Zuerich. Fax: +41-1-6321085